The Master
by JMcK
Summary: Let the games begin...


_Author's note: A few thoughtful reviewers said they'd like me to try writing something light for this fandom. And while that's not really my style, I thought I'd give it a shot. _

_Also? Feedback rocks my world._

_Hope you enjoy… _

**The Master**

The team was stranded in Alaska.

They'd checked out of their hotel before realizing that the massive winter blizzard would have them storm-stayed.

And there was no checking back in – a gaggle of similarly stuck tourists had beat them to it.

No room at the inn, so it seemed.

And it was quite possibly the best thing that had ever happened, as far as JJ was concerned.

They'd saved the life of eight-year-old Connor Kirkland early that same morning, foiling his kidnapper's ransom grab.

Connor's father, Peter Kirkland, was richer than sin and beyond grateful, and he'd offered up his 'guest house'.

Such as it was.

It was bigger than any of their own homes, including Hotch's.

Ten times as luxurious, too.

Sipping from her third glass of what she could only guess had to be an incredibly fine wine, JJ rested her head against the sinfully soft couch cushions and allowed herself to savor the moment.

Emily was curled up on the adjacent couch, wine glass in hand, looking as relaxed as JJ felt.

Hotch and Morgan had both taken recliners by the fire.

And the fire…

God, it was a beautiful thing.

Partly because of the way it lit the room with flickering orange light that almost made the passing moments surreal.

But mostly because the sight of Reid and Garcia trying to roast marshmallows with dinner forks in front of an indoor wood-burning fire just might have been the single most perfect thing she'd ever seen.

They were competing to see who could produce the most flawlessly tanned marshmallow, and it was a competition that the rest of them were only too happy to judge.

"Damn close to perfection, Darlin'," Morgan drawled to Garcia, licking marshmallow goo from his fingers.

"Speaking of perfection…" Reid spoke up, carefully pulling back from the fire and offering up his latest attempt.

He looked to Hotch, who had yet to partake.

And JJ knew before Hotch reached for the fork that he was going to crack and join them in sampling this slightly-childish treat, because there would be no resisting that hopeful gleam in Reid's eyes.

Not after a few glasses of wine, anyway.

They all watched Hotch's contemplative face as he chewed and swallowed.

And then he cracked a tiny smile, and announced:

"I have no frame of reference, but I feel comfortable giving it a ten."

Reid's hands shot into the air in triumph, and as Garcia assured Hotch that she could come up with an 'eleven', JJ took another sip of wine and let her eyes drift closed for just a moment.

From where she sat, essentially behind the rest of them, she could just barely feel the heat from the fire.

But it was incredibly warm anyway.

Warm from the inside out.

The serene moment broke gently when Reid turned to Garcia with a boyish grin and asked:

"You think he's got anything… chocolate?"

"And graham-y?!" Garcia returned, excited at the very prospect of making s'mores.

And off they ran to the kitchen.

Hotch got up and left, too, perhaps to use the washroom.

And Morgan got up and shoved Emily's feet aside to join her on the couch.

"Not too shabby, this place," he noted as he settled in, more for something to say than anything else.

"Pretty extravagant," Emily acknowledged.

JJ all but snorted, and they both turned to look at her.

"You forget that I've seen your place?" JJ asked, teasing good-naturedly when she added: "Pretty extravagant, indeed."

"That figures," Morgan said with a smile, turning back to Emily. "You look pretty comfortable in the lap of luxury."

"You pay for it," Emily noted, her tone suggesting she meant more than money.

And there was a brief silence before Morgan responded:

"You're not kidding."

Intrigued, JJ leaned forward, then found she had to actually get up and sit on the coffee table across from the others to see his face.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mean-Streets-of-Chicago paid for the high life?"

Morgan snorted a tiny laugh, leaned back, held up his right index finger to indicate 'one'.

"One year. More like eleven months. Maybe the closest I ever got to love, I guess. We weren't much more than kids."

"She had money?" Emily inquired.

"Could say that. She lived in a hotel suite. And when we decided to move in together…"

"_You_ lived in a hotel suite?" JJ clarified. "You…" She pressed her lips together, tried not to laugh right then and there. "… had a, um… Sugar Mama?"

When Emily cracked up, JJ quit fighting and joined her.

Morgan didn't even crack a smile, leveling his gaze with JJ's.

He told them somberly, his eyes a bit wounded:

"'Til she died."

They went still and silent, uncertain if it was okay to speak in response to that, unsure if he was serious.

Morgan continued without provocation:

"You know I wrecked my knee in college? Wasn't exactly football." He stared into the fire for a moment, finding his words. "I was trying to play the big man behind the wheel. Back country roads, right after a serious victory on the field. Speeding, passing, the whole bit. And it seems like the simplest thing now, right, but… You try to pass going uphill, when you can't see what's coming…" He paused. "Hell of a risk. She was dead on impact."

They both stared at him.

He stared at JJ.

Took in her truly horrified expression.

And laughed in her face.

"Payback's a bitch, JJ."

It took her all of three seconds to connect the dots back to the tall tale she'd told in Ozona.

And she shook her head through a grudging laugh.

"That was _weak_," she accused.

"What's that?" he tossed out, still smiling widely, as the others started to file back into the room.

"That was _weak_!!" JJ repeated, though she couldn't keep a smile off of her face.

"Finally got her back for the story about the woods," Morgan explained to Reid.

JJ pointed to herself:

"Three drinks." She turned her finger around to point at him. "More than a year to come up with that. I got you stone-cold sober with about a half second's prep time."

"There's history to this?" Emily asked, confused, looking back and forth between Morgan and JJ's playfully challenging gazes.

"Oh, there's history," Morgan answered her. "And now we're even." He turned to face Garcia. "Now, where are we on those s'mores?"

…

In a small recreation room just off the kitchen, there was a pool table available for their use.

_In the guest house_, which would have seemed something like luxury overkill, to Morgan, if not for the fact that he had a hell of a good time beating the others at the game.

Alone in the room with Garcia now, he watched her take a shot and sink the cue ball, forcing her to return one of the few balls she'd successfully sunk to the table.

She muttered something that seemed to include the words 'mindfuck' and 'tease', then said louder:

"I warn you now, playing this game with me could go on all night."

He smiled, busy chalking his stick.

"Hey," he called to her, across the table, after a moment. And when she looked up, he continued, "I'm glad you were here for this one."

"You and me both." She failed to throw in a nickname, and took the chalk from him to apply it to her own pool cue. "I think this whole spontaneous dreamland vacation has been good for JJ, too."

Morgan looked her over.

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning she's been nursing a severely smashed heart these past few weeks."

The slighest bit suspicious, Morgan narrowed his eyes at her.

"She seems fine to me."

"You're such a man," Garcia accused.

"I thought you liked that about me," he teased, smiling.

"Not when it means you're oblivious to the suffering of your friends."

She was short with him. Seemingly serious.

"You messing with me here?" he asked her.

"You call yourself a profiler, and you haven't noticed that she's received flowers at the office twelve times in the last seven months?"

He opened his mouth to speak, and she cut him off:

"And yes, I counted, and yes, that is a hint that maybe I wouldn't mind a gift of the floral variety once in a picky blue moon! But more to the glaringly obvious point? Those flower deliveries stopped right around the time she caught Alex-fricking-Patterson wrapped around Jodi-fricking-silicone."

She huffed and turned back to the pool table, looking just disgusted enough with this 'Alex' that Morgan sighed.

"Damn," he said quietly. "That's rough."

He had just enough time – a second or two- to reach for his pool cue, before the quietest chuckling reached his ears, and he turned to find JJ in the doorway.

Her playful smile screamed triumph, and he turned accusing eyes on Garcia, whose smile leaned more in the direction of 'apologetic'.

"No, no, no," he said quickly, turning back to JJ. "I'm calling foul, right here, right now. That wasn't you, that was her."

"I pretty much wrote her a script," JJ defended herself.

"I came up with Jodi-fricking-silicone," Garcia interjected.

"You don't get to outsource!" Morgan insisted.

But JJ only shrugged, tossed out:

"Worked, didn't it?"

And then she headed over for the small chalk board where they'd all been keeping track of pool games won.

She grabbed a piece of chalk, labelled two columns simply 'me' and 'him'.

Marking one quick hash mark under his side and two under hers, she turned on her heel and walked out.

…

"Hotch, it's all in good fun," Morgan pleaded his case.

Hotch was smiling as he shook his head 'no', which Morgan took as a good sign.

"I'll help," Reid offered through a mouthful of toothpaste, wandering in.

There were two bedrooms in the guest house, which meant one for the men and one for the women.

Hotch had already changed, and presently he sat down on his bed.

Morgan turned to face Reid.

"That's a nice offer, Kid, but that's what she'll expect. She probably figures I'll line you up for something soon. Hotch, though? She probably thinks he wouldn't get involved."

"Because I won't." Hotch repeated his stance, climbing into bed.

"It'll be a purely verbal prank," Morgan tried one last time.

"Good night," was the only response.

Morgan gave up and left to use the washroom, comforting himself with the thought that he'd get JJ back on his own if he let enough time pass to let it all slip from her mind.

Hotch turned his face into the six-hundred-thread-count sheets, smiling on the inside.

It was all amusing.

And it was going to be a restful couple of days.

…

The quiet vacation didn't last.

The storm continued to rage, making air travel impossible.

But JJ's cell phone shrilled loudly enough to be heard even on the other side of the wall, in the guys' room, just before seven-o-clock the next morning.

The gently sleepy tone in the house turned to something frantic and disbeliving when it turned out that there had been a brutal quadruple homicide just a few miles away, and the local police who had called them in on the kidnapping desperately wanted their continued support, at least as long as they were stuck in town.

Everyone struggled to make themselves presentable in short order, and while Garcia stood waiting for JJ to finish with the bathroom so that she could use it herself, she turned to Morgan and Reid and Hotch and gestured for them to take off.

"Go!" She insisted. "Me and winter driving, we get along fine. I'll get us there as soon as we're ready."

"It's a real, true blizzard out there," Morgan cautioned.

"Morgan!" Hotch called from the door.

"We'll be fine," Garcia insisted. "Go!"

Morgan nodded and turned to follow Hotch and Reid out.

The front door slammed, and JJ emerged from the bathroom, still in sleepwear, still looking relaxed.

Emily hurried after the guys, ready to go.

"Em!"

"Emily!"

JJ and Garcia both called her back.

Emily turned, her expression quizzical.

JJ just shook her head slowly, back and forth, a now-familiar mischievous gleam in her eye.

And Emily smiled widely, getting the joke.

"Isn't it his turn?" she asked, chuckling.

"That's kind of the point," JJ noted. "If it was my turn? At this point he'd see pretty much anything coming."

"I bow to the master," Garcia said with a silly grin. "He's way out of his league."

"Does Hotch know?" Emily asked, a bit concerned.

"Oh, Hotch knows," JJ assured her. "Hotch played his part well."

"How did you get him to agree to it?"

"You have to know your target," JJ explained. "Hotch almost never sleeps sitting up. And it was my turn on the couch, on the jet on the way back."

She shrugged, smiled, and added:

"Now it's his."

…


End file.
